Deloitte and Attest team up for government blockchain identity

Government clients will have access to digital identity solutions through a new collaboration between the world’s largest professional services network, Deloitte and the identity management company, Attest. The new partnership launched yesterday in Washington will help unlock the full potential of blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) for government. It will provide administrations with the resources needed to solve a host of government-specific issues.

Wendy Henry, managing director, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and Deloitte’s government and public services blockchain leader stated that previous blockchain pilots with government clients had shown that “digital identity can be a thorny issue” and highlighted the specific concerns of government stating that “governments must serve the whole of citizens, including those who may not be able to accept the control of their identity credential in a digital form.”

Collaborative efforts

The new collaboration will focus on the two products within the Attest digital identity platform: Attest Wallet and Attest Enterprise. Attest Wallet is an application which provides agency, privacy and security for consumers when they share verified personal data with governments and businesses.

Attest Enterprise provides governments and businesses with a complete set of tools for authentication, authorization and consent management. These tools can integrate with any system using two simple application programming interfaces (APIs).

Deloitte has a history of expertise in this area with their Center for Government Insights which recently published the report Assessing Blockchain Applications for the Public Sector, an in-depth look at blockchain uses in government. The report identified six key factors to consider in assessing the readiness of a government application for blockchain.

The benefits of digital identities apply to citizens as well as government. As described by Cab Morris, co-founder, and chief executive officer of Attest “A government-issued digital identity has the potential to reduce costs and risk for businesses in all industries, while also providing citizens with greater security, privacy and control over personal data.”

Other blockchain initiatives

Estonia has the most mature blockchain government platform that was developed with local company Guardtime.

Regarding generic identity technologies, the two highest profile are Sovrin and Civic. Sovrin’s technology is now part of the Hyperledger Indy project.

Other projects include digital security company Gemalto which is piloting a self-sovereign identity solution. There are separate Spanish and Korean banking consortia projects working on customer identity management. In the US the main credit union consortium launched MyCUID. And there’s the public good initiative ID2020 that aims to help refugees and others who lack an officially recognized identity.